The Fender Mustang was introduced in August 1964. This guitar was essentially a Duo-Sonic with a Dynamic Fender Vibrato. It was available in three colors: Red, Blue, and White. Although similar to Fender's custom colors of the time: Dakota Red, Daphne Blue, and Olympic White, these namings were apparently never used on the Mustang. They were just plain Red, Blue, and White. The Red and Blue ones came with white pearl pickguards (white pearl-black-white), black pickup covers with no pole piece holes, and black slider switches. The White ones came with red tortoise-pearl pickguards (red pearl-black-white) and white (creamish) pickup covers and white slider switches. The white slider switches were made of different material than the pickup covers and tended to stay whiter and not age to a greenish gray color like the pickup covers.
The specifications for Fender Mustangs change relatively little over the years. Here are the basic specs of the Mustang in 1964:
Poplar or Mahogany slab body (Note: as of March 2000, I no longer believe Mustangs were ever made with Alder body wood.)
"Patriotic Colors" Red, White, and Blue
Maple neck with rosewood fingerboard
Two single coil pickups with black base plate
Small headstock with Transition Fender Logo
One string guide
Kluson tuners with plastic oval knobs
White dot finger board markers (sometimes Faux pearl dot inlays)
White pearl neck side markers on the seam of maple and rosewood
Brass shielding plate in the pickup, slider switch, and control cavity
Two slider switch ON-OFF-PHASE for each of the two pickups
12 screw pickguard
3 screw control plate
Dynamic Fender Vibrato
White Tremolo Bar Tip
L-series neck plate
One volume one tone with black plastic knobs with white marker line Headstock numbers (early '64): DES. 186,826 PAT. 2,960,900 2,741,146 & PAT. PEND.
Headstock numbers (late '64): DES. 186,826 PAT. 2,960,900 2,741,146 3,143,028 & PAT. PEND.
24" scale with 22-frets standard (optional 22-1/2" scale with 21-frets). Most '64 Mustangs appear to be shipped with short scale length necks with "A" neck widths (1-1/2").
photo 5 = trem unit pat pending. chrome almost completely gone off of the tube.
Last edited by robroe on Thu Sep 08, 2011 4:34 am, edited 1 time in total.
thats some good detective work, guys
I wil stay away from this guitar, but will ask some pics of the guts, just to see what will show up
also the fact, beside all the replacements, that there is no rust on the guitar make me nervous.
On my almost mint 66 coronado, there is rust on stringtree, bridge and every other screw, and the coronado is really mint
Huh. It actually looks like this is a '65 RI that the guy just put an actual vintage neckplate on at this point. That neck has to be a RI neck in light of Rob's post. Everything else looks like a normal '65 RI.
euan wrote:
I'm running in monoscope right now. I can't read multiple dimensions of meta right now
Pens wrote:Huh. It actually looks like this is a '65 RI that the guy just put an actual vintage neckplate on at this point. That neck has to be a RI neck in light of Rob's post. Everything else looks like a normal '65 RI.
or it might be one of the older '90s japanese reissues (before the 69RIs came out). regardless, it's not what he says it is.
To be fair, the Decal says Pat Pend like on robroes, and there is no serial where the japanese serials usually are. The neck looks a bit too pale, but that could be just the picture. a neck stamp would clear things up. But the obvious stuff (tuners, pickups, trem plate) is enough to disqualify that guitar as "unaltered original".
I would stay away because if he is claiming unaltered original hes either clueless or lying and his expectations on price are not going to be anywhere near it being a deal.
